Prejudice: Disliking Others

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Prejudice Disliking Others

• Chapter 12

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Outline of Todays Lecture

• Definitions of Stereotypes, Prejudice and
  Discrimination
• How do Stereotypes Form?
• Why do they Persist?
• Social Identity Theory
• Racism
• Methods to Reduce Racism

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Stereotypes

• A belief about the personal attributes of a group
  of people. Stereotypes can be overgeneralized,
  inaccurate and resistant to new information

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Prejudice

• A negative prejudgment of a group and its
  individual members

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Discrimination

• Discrimination Unjustifiable negative behaviour
  toward a group or its members
• Racism (1) An individuals prejudicial attitudes
  and discriminatory behaviour toward people of a
  given race or (2) institutional practices (even
  if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate
  people of a given race
• Sexism (1) An individuals prejudicial attitudes
  and discriminatory behaviour toward people of a
  given sex or (2) institutional practices (even if
  not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate
  people of a given sex

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Distinguishing Between Stereotypes, Prejudice and
Discrimination

• Stereotypes Beliefs about members of a specific
  group
• Prejudice Negative feelings towards members of a
  specific group
• Discrimination Negative behaviours directed at
  members of a specific group

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How Do Stereotypes Form?

• Social categorization we tend to sort people
  into groups on the basis of common attributes
  (e.g., race, gender) this is a cognitive process
• Drawbacks leads us to overestimate the
  differences between groups and underestimate the
  differences within groups

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How Do Stereotypes Form?

• Ingroups versus Outgroups (cognitive process)
• Ingroup - group you belong to or identify with
• Outgroup - groups you dont belong to or identify
  with
• Us versus them

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Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

• Tendency for social perceivers to assume there is
  greater similarity among members of outgroups
  than among members of ingroups
• Study
• White, African-American and Mexican-American
  store clerks were asked to identify a White
  customer, an African-American customer and a
  Mexican-American customer

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Cross-Race Identification Effect
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Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

• Why does it occur?

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How Do Stereotypes Form?

• If we have come to think that the nursery and
  kitchen are the natural spheres of a woman, we
  have done so exactly as English children have
  come to think that a cage is the natural sphere
  of a parrot - because they have never seen one
  anywhere else
• George Bernard Shaw

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Why Do Stereotypes Persist?

• Confirmation bias
• People look for confirming evidence to support
  the stereotype they hold

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Why Do Stereotypes Persist?

• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• Our expectations about others can lead us to act
  in ways that cause other people to behave
  consistently with our expectations

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Why do Stereotypes Persist?

• Portrayal in the media
• E.g., gender stereotypic portrayals of men and
  women

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Do Stereotypes Bias Judgments of Individuals?

• Hannah Study
• Hannah was described as either higher or lower
  class
• Participants watched the exact same video of
  Hannah
• Those who thought she was upper-class judged her
  as more intelligent than participants who thought
  she was lower-class

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Do Stereotypes Bias Judgments of Individuals?

• Rating Professors
• When students get good grades, they tend to like
  their professors, whether they are male or female
• When students get bad grades, they rate their
  females professors more negatively than their
  male professors

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Prejudice

• Negative feelings about others because of their
  connection to a social group

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Ethnocentrism

• The belief that ones own ethnic group, nation,
  or religion is superior to all others and a
  corresponding disdain for all other groups
• Aids survival by making people feel attached to
  their own group and willing to work on their
  groups behalf.

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Ingroup Favouritism Study

• Participants looked quickly at a series of dots
  on a slide

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Ingroup Favouritism Study

• Participants guessed how many dots there were and
  were split into 2 groups
• Overestimators
• Underestimators
• Participants allocated money to other
  participants (both ingroup and outgroup members)

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Ingroup Favouritism Study Results

• Participants allocated more money to their
  ingroup than to members of the outgroup

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Social Identity Theory

• People favour ingroups over outgroups in order to
  enhance their self-esteem
• Our self-esteem has 2 components
• 1) personal identity
• 2) social identities (based on the groups we
  belong to)
• People belittle them in order to feel secure
  about us

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Does a Threat to Ones Self-Esteem Lead to an
Increase in Prejudice?

• Participants wrote a test and were given positive
  or negative feedback
• Participants given negative feedback temporarily
  had lower self-esteem than participants given
  positive feedback

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Does a Threat to Ones Self-Esteem Lead to an
Increase in Prejudice?

• Participants then participated in a second study
  in which they evaluated a job applicant
• Half of the participants evaluated Maria
  DAgostino (Italian)
• Half of the participants evaluated Julie Goldberg
  (Jewish)

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Does a Threat to Ones Self-Esteem Lead to an
Increase in Prejudice?
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Does the Expression of Prejudice Restore Ones
Self-Esteem?
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Summary of Study

• A threat to ones self-esteem can lead to the
  expression of prejudice
• The expression of prejudice can, in turn, lead to
  an increase in self-esteem

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Why are People Prejudiced Towards Others?

• To restore/maintain self-esteem
• To maintain the status quo
• Because of competition for limited resources

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Why are People Prejudiced Towards Others?

• To restore/maintain self-esteem
• To maintain the status quo
• Because of competition for limited resources

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Racism

• Prejudice and discrimination based on a persons
  racial background
• Levels of Racism
• Individual level a given individual is racist
  towards another person
• Institutional/cultural level factors that
  unfairly give privilege to some people in
  society while causing discrimination against
  others

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Modern Racism

• A form of prejudice that surfaces in subtle ways
  when it is safe, socially acceptable and easy to
  rationalize

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Helping Study

• White participants worked in a group with either
  an African-American or a white confederate
• Confederate asks for help on the task
• Half of the participants were told that the
  confederate had tried really hard, the other half
  were told that the confederate had not tried very
  hard on the task
• Who do they help?

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Helping Study Results

• White participants helped both the
  African-American and White confederate when they
  believed that they tried hard
• When they believe the confederate did not try
  hard, white participants helped the White
  confederate, but not the African-American
  confederate

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Modern Racism

• True Colours

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Methods to Reduce Prejudice and Discrimination

• Contact hypothesis the theory that direct
  contact between hostile groups will reduce
  prejudice
• Reasoning behind the desegregation of schools in
  the 1950s

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Conditions for the Contact Hypothesis to Succeed

• 1) Equal status contact
• 2) Personal interaction
• 3) Cooperative activities
• 4) Social norms

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Robbers Cave Study

• Summer camp for boys
• Boys were split into two groups the Eagles and
  the Rattlers
• The groups competed against one another in a
  series of games
• The winner of the competition was rewarded with
  big prizes
• Eagles and Rattlers hated each other

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Robbers Cave Study

• How could peace be restored?
• Superordinate Goals